Of Tea and Kisses
by pol
Summary: Clarice makes her move, much to her surprise.


Title: Of Tea and Kisses.

Author: Pol.

Rating: Can escape with a PG. H/C of course. On the angsty side.

Disclaimer: So obviously not mine. Why are you still asking?

A/N: To be completely honest with you, I don't have a clue where this came from and I never intended to post it, but I just re-found it on my computer and thought it might be a fun little read. There's nothing complicated or brain-stretching about it, but I did try to steer away from the many, many stereotypical 'chucked-from-the-FBI' fics that are floating around. Sorry I had to use the premise at all, but it got the ball rolling.

ENJOY.

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She was halfway to the couch for a moment of quietitude when her feet froze firmly to the floorboards.

"Hey." She was close to dumbstruck and the automatic greeting immediately caught her out.

"Hey?" He teased, in his best West Virginia twang. "Why, Clarice, is that all I'm to expect of you after all this time?"

She looked at him curiously. _It must be shock,_ she thought to herself with a strange calm.

"I'm sorry. What else do you say?" She replied, not taking her eyes from his face. There was nothing to tell there. As always he was unreadable. Although it was possible she detected a hint of amusement.

"Quite. I believe I've caught you off guard."

"I didn't know I was supposed to be on guard," she said evenly.

He flashed her a sudden smile. And that's when the absurdity of the moment raced through her and the shock descended into an instant of fear and disbelief.

"W-what are you doing here, Dr. Lecter?"

"Just visiting, Clarice. I rather thought I'd cause more of a stir than this."

"Yeah, um, you know I have my gun, Dr. Lecter?"

"Of course."

"Just so you're warned." She had to look away then. It was impossible to _warn_ Dr. Lecter and her voice had wavered slightly.

"Thank you, Agent Starling. I appreciate the thought."

"Not Agent Starling," she interrupted, without thinking, again letting her eyes flicker up to him and away. The floorboards didn't seem in the least threatening. It was odd that neither did Dr. Lecter.

Now she'd got _him_ off guard. He was watching her with those remarkably seeing eyes, waiting for the explanation. When she didn't provide one, he prodded with a _hmmm?_

"I'm not any more. I was fired."

Still he didn't say anything. Still she didn't look at him. She was desperately afraid of what she might see, knowing that it would creep right through her.

"About two months ago. It's no big deal. I have a really good job now."

"Doing what?"

"Head of the criminology research team for Klin Security."

"Sounds horrific."

"It's fine." She bit back angrily. Two whole months she'd gone without resenting the loss of her job. There'd been problems, and the constant lack of sleep had made her slip up finally. Just enough that they had something to pack her up and bundle her off with. She hadn't left much behind. In the end she'd practically been a paper pusher anyway, and her meddling in other agents' cases had not gone done well. Even if they _had_ asked for her help. She'd been able to think of it all exactly like that; with a sense of pragmatism. It was the end of one part of her life. Not a failure, not a permanent black mark against her name, not the end of the world.

Trust Pop-Up-Lecter to make it into Freud with his mother.

But he didn't reply right away. Instead he stepped toward her (causing one of her hands to flutter toward the phone stand) and took her arm. The errant hand fluttered back in again, possibly useful for a punch in the gut, but he was only guiding her to the lounge.

_Still in shock, _she told herself, absently noting the gentle presence of his fingers directing her. _Snap out of it, girl. You're letting him run the show._

"What are you doing?" She asked, sounding slightly annoyed. But he was perfectly congenial.

"Sitting down. It's more comfortable that way, don't you think?"

"What is?"

"A conversation."

"We're not having a conversation."

"_Really?_ Clarice, this is obviously something that needs to be talked about. And _now_ is when we're going to do it."

She bit her lip, internally furious that she seemed incapable of taking control of the situation. The problem was that it was just too surreal. Instead of an immediate and thrilling sense of danger, something that would push her into autopilot, she was in an almost distanced place. He wasn't provoking her. She pretty much wished he would.

In the time she took to process that, however, Lecter had already sat them both down, side by side. He had let go of her arm but she was painfully aware that it lay right there on the cushion, mere inches from her leg. That awareness buzzed her into an even more surreal place.

What the _fuck_ was going on here? She stared at the opposite wall fiercely.

"Look, Dr. Lecter, I know you like dissecting…well, everything, but I'm not in the mood. You don't have anything to sell; I'm not going to get all "frank" for nothing."

"Still playing quid pro quo?"

"You started it."

He paused, a smile flittering sideways into the corners of his mouth. She caught the movement in her highly trained peripheral vision but she continued to stare determinedly at her off-white wall, imagining spots in the paint.

"You married the FBI, Clarice," he said clearly, definitely. "You pledged more than your life, you pledged your soul. You cannot possibly believe that in walking away you could escape the intensity of the loyalty you invested."

"Good for you though, isn't it?" She answered wryly, surprising the both of them. "I mean, I'd so have you handcuffed already."

"That's what you think," he replied lightly.

They turned toward each other, suddenly sharing a moment in which neither felt the weight of the world pressing into them.

"Hey, I might not be so big, but I'm tougher than you think," she continued easily, enjoying the sensation of levity.

But his voice became tinged with seriousness. "I doubt that. I expect you underestimate how I think of you."

She had to try to steel herself against breaking eye contact again. Hadn't he just said she wasn't weak?

He gave her escape. "Doesn't mean you'd win though."

She shook her head. "That's what _you _think," she echoed cheekily, surprised and relieved that he'd let her off the hook like that.

"Now that you're done avoiding the situation, Clarice, we'd better get on with it. Why were you fired?"

She shrugged. "Bits and pieces. They'd been waiting for ages for a good enough excuse, and then after Mr. Crawford was pushed into retirement it was only a matter of time. To be fair, I did start making mistakes."

"Mistakes?"

"Yeah." She was tiring now. Despite the surreal atmosphere, it was definitely wearing her down. She was trying to stay alert, trying to battle this odd calm, trying to be prepared for whatever might come.

"Something was causing you to slip up. What was it?"

"Haven't been sleeping. Not that that's anything new. Just caught up with me eventually."

"Everything catches up with you eventually, Clarice."

She glanced over at him, an intensity coursing through her, an eyebrow quirking unconsciously.

"Apparently."

He inclined his head at her audacity and winked slyly.

"I must admit I had expected you to take this rather differently."

"Yeah, because you still thought of me as Agent Starling. I'm doing my best at not playing that game any more."

He waited patiently. He was sure there was more.

But she hid all the troublesome underlying emotions by stating rather roughly; "But don't think I've changed so much that I wouldn't stop you from walking out that door."

Well, this was interesting. It was true that Clarice did have a gun (although not on her person) and that they were sitting right by the phone, but surely Dr. Lecter wasn't just going to wait quietly while she got herself organized.

He leant back into the seat, crossing one leg over the other.

"And if I don't walk out the door?"

She frowned slightly, confused.

"You're just going to stay here forever?"

"The logistics are obviously something that will have to be figured out when the time comes. And like you said I don't have anything to sell."

"It seems like a pretty stupid thing for you to do, coming here, if you don't mind me saying," Clarice agreed.

"Is that what it seems like?" He closed his eyes for a moment, then refocused on her. He was tasting her battle. Maybe she was now so accustomed to it that she no longer knew she was fighting. Always fighting.

He let her think for a minute before continuing.

"You are aware of how I value freedom."

It wasn't a question but he paused long enough for her to nod, even though she was staring at her hands (the wall had been a miserable endeavour) as she clasped them tightly in her lap.

"Good. So I am relieved that you have been given yours, even if it was an unwanted gift. And you _will_ appreciate it at some point, if not now. But I am sorry that you have had to endure this."

She turned to him sharply. _Hannibal Lecter, sorry?_

"There are very few people who constantly push themselves, challenge themselves, the way that you do. Look at yourself right now, Clarice. You're allowing yourself to sit here next to me, challenging yourself to stay in control of the situation. So that you can handle what comes next. It's a pity you feel the need to _handle_ everything."

"What would you recommend?" She retorted. "Should I just let everything crumble down around me?"

"You'll find, Clarice, that things tend to stand on their own. _You _would crumble, not the world."

"And what? You'd find that funny?"

She was choking back all those unnoticed, unrewarded emotions now. The fear of her failure, the blinding anger at the FBI, the fucking _injustice_ of it all, the unfairness of sitting here having a little _chat_ to Hannibal Lecter while everyone else had let her fade away. And then the confusion of an awareness in which Dr. Lecter was not an enemy despite the tinge of danger enveloping her…it wasn't a list ready for her to compile or comprehend. It all hovered there in the back of her throat, mixed and mingled in a package of neglect.

She knew that his eyes were scanning every slight change of expression and she tensed her jaw against letting the muddle of emotion catch up with her mask of indifference.

But, of course, Dr. Lecter knew her well enough to read every betrayal of her eyes. There was a lot there, but then he'd known that since Baltimore. The psychiatrist in him was fascinated. The rest of him was concerned.

He didn't mean to put an arm around her shoulders, the arm that had so definitively been the barrier between them until this point.

She didn't mean to let him, to fall into his protection like a child.

But he did. And she did.

He drew her into the hollow of his arm, shocked by the chill that travelled down his back as her head fell onto his shoulder. That _never _happened to him.

Walking out that door was about to get even more complicated.

Neither spoke for a while. To Clarice the time of silence was both entrancing and lulling. Her awareness was caught between a vague idea of the _wrongness_ of the situation, the ridiculous dreamlike world she was walking through, and the incredibly sharp sense of Dr. Lecter's fingers in her hair, stroking, stroking.

Dr. Lecter found himself curiously taken aback by the turn of events. Not only the way in which Clarice was letting herself go, but the way he'd lost his caution to a certain extent. Although he was still extremely aware that any moment she might try to lay a trap for him, he was being distracted by the unfamiliarity of _holding_ her. Until this point Clarice had been in essence a mind to him. A complex, compelling mind, encased in a network of morality and personal conviction. He had held her mind in his hands since Baltimore. He'd never held her body before.

Just as Clarice was lost between dream and waking, Dr. Lecter was losing something too. The chill was still dancing down his spine, in his fingertips now too. This was entirely new to him. Physical contact, even with women, had never really provoked much out of him in the past. He _always_ had to be in control. It was quite simply how he survived.

Finally her voice hummed against his shoulder.

"Dr. Lecter?"

"Hmm?"

"You've made this really difficult, haven't you?"

"I didn't intend to."

"You just thought you'd stride on in, have a cup of tea and exeunt yourself?" Her incredulity was muffled into his shirt. His fingers kept the rhythm of their touch in her hair.

"You were planning on offering me a cup of tea? What was that for, DNA?"

"I _can _tell it's really you and not your evil twin." She laughed shortly, wryly. "Or are _you _the evil twin?"

"Would it help?"

"It would certainly be less complicated."

He smiled to himself. His Clarice had most decisively grown up recently. She was much more pragmatic in the face of aversion. Slightly more cynical, perhaps, but it gave a twist to her sense of humour that he liked.

They were silent again for a while. He was perfectly content to let her take over at this point. He'd got what he'd come for early on (the satisfaction of his curiosity) and the rest was simply exploration. How far Clarice could trust herself to respond to him. What the turn in the conversation would be. He had been enjoying himself. Since this new eventuality he was also surprised with himself. He rarely got to savour _that_ sensation.

"Dr. Lecter?" She began again, several minutes later.

"I do have a first name too, Clarice," he replied.

"Yes. But, Dr. Lecter, do you know how this is going to end? Or are you just pretending to be so calm and collected?"

He loved that she had completely brushed past his suggestion, that she probably hadn't even registered it yet.

"There are two ways this will end, Clarice," he told her.

"You mean, well or badly?"

He laughed. "Yes, exactly."

The sound of his laughter caused her to shift slightly. She didn't look up at him, just across his chest, in the general direction of the front door.

"You're anticipating too much," he told her. "Never predict something before you can see what leads up to it. You have no foundation yet."

Finally she looked up at him, meeting his astonishingly piercing eyes.

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"I don't promise to answer."

"Yeah, well, you owe me. I answered all yours." Her eyebrow arched at him and his eyes twinkled back.

She nodded at the unspoken agreement. _I dare you to ask._

"Would you…um." She stopped, regrouped, tried again. "Okay, would you ever…bite me?" 

Her cheeks flushed red but she didn't back down. His hand froze in her hair, resting against the curve of her scalp.

"You're asking if I would eat you?" He asked, sounding markedly mischievous.

"No, not eat. Bite."

He took a moment to study her, to understand where she was going with the distinction.

"In what situation?"

He'd got her.

"It doesn't matter," she lied, risking his irritation.

"Of course it does," he returned, slightly annoyed. He knew she'd just kept something from him and he didn't like it at all. Still, having her curled against him was slightly mollifying.

"I don't mean like in a situation where I forced you to fight. I mean, just because…"

"Just because, Clarice?"

She pursed her lips.

"There are some chances I'm not willing to take until I know where we stand."

And suddenly he'd caught that vital glimpse into her train of thought. Almost immediately he second-guessed himself, but it didn't help. He knew what Clarice was thinking. Was she just going to keep surprising him this way indefinitely? He hoped so.

_"Oh."_ At the sight of Clarice going red again he knew he'd understood correctly. "You have always given trust too easily. I had considered that a flaw. But it does seem rather an unfortunate time for you to choose to remedy it."

"I'm done getting let down, Dr. Lecter." So succinct.

"I took a risk in coming here, Clarice," he replied, the only way he could possibly have reassured her. They both knew it. "You said yourself that it seemed a "pretty stupid" thing to do."

"Yeah. Could you please not look at me right now?"

She shifted then, sitting up a bit more. His hand dropped to her shoulder; the hands that had been firmly clasped in her lap unravelled themselves.

She didn't give herself too much time to think about it, to become afraid, and he was very conscious of keeping still, of not scaring her off as she leant toward him.

It wasn't until her lips met his that he realized she was crying. The salt of her silent tears trickled over their lips as she kissed him softly, gently, surreally.

And then he was holding her tightly and one of her porcelain hands was resting on his jaw.

The kiss was fairly chaste. He let her take charge and followed her lead carefully. It was only a few moments before she pulled away, her hand still cool against his cheek.

His head cocked to one side and their eyes met. And in an instant her face had fallen, and she was crying like a child, shaking uncontrollably.

Instinctively he wrapped her in both arms, folding the strayed hand under her chin. He could feel her tears soaking through his shirt, hear her gasping for breath, smell the delicacy of her skin. And at one point a _"God damn it!"_

When she wriggled out of his grasp just enough to face him her face was splotchy. She sniffled.

"This is me crumbling," she said dryly. "Funny, huh?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"Hilarious," he whispered, perfectly deadpan. It made her smile just a bit.

"Oakey dokey," he continued. "Time to get the show on the road, don't you think?"

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Clarice wondered if he was avoiding the situation. Or maybe he'd always known that this was going to happen and he was prepared. She certainly hadn't known.

She answered by instinct.

"Fine. If you'll just stay here a moment, Dr. Lecter?"

He watched her intently.

"It's all right. No gun, I promise. No police. Just stay here. Okay?"

He lifted his hands, palms up, into the air. It seemed to bend around his delicate gesture. Clarice refused to acknowledge it.

"Okay, then."

And then, with perhaps as much audacity as she'd ever had in her life, she turned her back on the doctor and left the room.

When she returned she was wearing her running clothes, sweats and a tank top. Dr. Lecter hadn't moved, as agreed.

"Thank you," she said quietly, nodding to him as she walked past.

He rose as she went by but he didn't stop her. She stopped herself before the door, back still turned to him.

"I would leave in the next half hour, Dr. Lecter, if I were you."

Her hand, shaking almost imperceptibly, reached for the door handle and rested against the cool metal in desperation and relief.

"Goodbye," she murmured, so softly that had he not had inhumanly attuned hearing it would have been missed.

He didn't respond, though, or if he did, she couldn't hear him. But she knew he'd been listening.

The door closed behind her with an astonishingly frightening click. She pounded her feet into the footpath, reaching the road, not looking back, running fiercely.

It wasn't five minutes before her breathing caught and she had to regulate her stride. She ignored the constancy of the tears on her sweaty cheeks and focused absolutely on the rhythm of her breath, the rhythm of the road.

_This is not happening. This is not happening._

And all she wanted to do was turn back, aim her gun, fire on something solid. Then, for better or worse, it would all be over. But she could only keep thinking, over and over and over, that the doctor was going to linger in her life for a very long time. Whether he really there or not, watching her from the next room or the next continent, Clarice knew that she could never escape him now.

Am not entirely sure where this came from. Do you think it should have a sequel or not? I quite like it as it is, however bizarre and abrupt, but I'm willing to take suggestions. Please, please, review and tell me what you think. Pol.


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